Austin, Texas — It was an idea that bordered on insanity: orchestrate a 15-hour showcase during the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference spotlighting 30 artists from Milwaukee — and make it happen in two month's time.

Not so surprisingly, the MilwaukeeHome Stage showcase, held Wednesday at a downtown Austin club, Cielo, hit some big bumps along the way. Melissa Thornton, a chief showcase organizer and founder of the local apparel company, MilwaukeeHome, that gave the stage its name, admitted to dropping the ball on a sponsorship offer from K-Nation Entertainment. Austin-based Milwaukee native and marketer Jeremy Rogers, said by organizers to be orchestrating a street team promoting the event, said no one ever asked him about it. | March 12, 2014»Read Full Article(3)

One of the screens at the Oriental Theatre this week was filled with scenes, not from an exotic foreign film or a big Hollywood production, but from a low-budget documentary set in the streets of Racine

The documentary, "Pattern or Practice," tells the story of minority bar owners in Racine who have lost their liquor licenses and contends the losses were due to unfair treatment by the city of minority bar owners compared with the way the city deals with white bar owners. | March 12, 2014»Read Full Article(4)

String quartets, at least the ones that play, teach and tour together for many years, are unique organisms — hybrids of a marriage, a small, democratic government with a constant possibility of deadlock, and a performer expected to play at the very highest artistic level.

Brandy Clark, performing in November in Nashville, Tenn., opens for Jennifer Nettles on Friday at the Riverside Theater. Her first album, “12 Stories,” took a few years to find a label.

Be leery, radio programmers, of the allure of "bro-country," cautions country singer Jennifer Nettles.

"If you don't have mutation on any radio format, but I'm speaking specifically about country, we're all going to have three legs and lots of really weird inbreeding," Nettles joked in a recent interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Artistically, everybody needs to diversify if we're going to survive." | March 12, 2014»Read Full Article

SXSW is now in full swing and Dana Coppa & Speakeasy have already hit the stage. After a 20 hour drive, they performed at Peckerheads (worst bar name ever) to a solid crowd. They always bring the energy so it's cool to see just a small piece of Milwaukee representing down in Austin. More updates from Unifi and other artists to follow so stay tuned to the blog for more. Check it.

No characters are named in Updike's "Wife-wooing," published in The New Yorker in 1960. But Updike included this story in "Too Far to Go," his 1979 collection of stories about Richard and Joan Maple. So presumably the horny, lyrical husband who narrates is Richard, and the object of his affection (meaning lust) is Joan. | March 12, 2014»Read Full Blog Post